Extending maternity leave seems to bring more benefit than causing costs
Heening Thomsen, co-author of the cost-benefit study on extending maternity leave and introducing mandatory paternity leave, was invited by the Employment and Women's Right Committee of the European Parliament to present the most important results. It was the objective of the study to analyse the financial impact if fully paid maternity leave would be extended to 18 and 20 weeks respectively. The study was based on 10 Member States. A point system was introduced to carry out a cost-benefit analysis, which among others also assessed the impact of the extension of maternity leave on the participation of women in the labour market. The most important conclusion is that the extension of maternity leave would result in an increase of women in the labour market of one percent. This would prove that the extension would be an economically worthwhile investment for society and that the benefit would outweigh the costs. The co-author reaches a similar conclusion in respect of introducing a fully paid two-week paternity leave.

It is easy to talk about costs, less easy to talk about the benefit
Edite Estrella, rapporteur in the Women's Committee on the Directive on maternity leave got right to the point when she said that unlike benefits, costs were relatively easy to calculate. More emphasis had to be given to the long-term benefit. The new EU 2020 Strategy would in particular address the larger participation of women in the labour market; however, this would only be possible if the right framework conditions would be created, said Estrella. The European Parliament will finally vote on the Directive on maternity leave in the not too distant future. It remains to be seen whether the Parliamentarians will agree on extending the maternity leave at full pay. Last year, they failed to reach an agreement in the plenum and history might repeat itself.